Roman Košťál - HIDDEN éditions | The Seven Silents #2
Dimensions: 26.5 × 24 cm
Medium: Sololit panel with canvas, charcoal
Year: 2024
Dimensions: 26.5 × 24 cm
Medium: Sololit panel with canvas, charcoal
Year: 2024
Dimensions: 26.5 × 24 cm
Medium: Sololit panel with canvas, charcoal
Year: 2024
This painting portrays an allegorical portrait of silence, as an addition to the previous series “Tilter,” composed of portraits of women without mouths (the word “Tilter” is the artist’s own invention, without any specific meaning). The girl in the painting, like the artist’s deceased father, can no longer speak. Her makeup dissolves in tears, showing a face that cannot smile but only weep. She lies on a bed, which might be a hospital bed or deathbed. Such ambiguity evokes a haunting uncertainty and a longing for more answers. This tragic scene echoes Hans Christian Andersen’s Little Mermaid, who, betrayed, threw herself into the waves, becoming silent sea foam. There is also a connection to Kafka’s Metamorphosis, where Gregor Samsa, transformed into a horrifying insect, loses his ability to communicate, although he passively understands human language. Roman’s painting shares Kafka’s typical absurdity and the inescapable nature of a hopeless fate.
HIDDEN éditions | The Seven Silents
We are honored to present in HIDDEN Editions a unique and deeply personal series of paintings by Roman Košťál titled “The Seven Silents.” This collection was completed in the months following the death of his father, with each artwork exploring shadow plays of faded memories and the undercurrents of memory’s mycelial networks, touching upon themes of human loss and the search for universal meaning amidst painful life changes.
"This collection was completed in the months following the death of Roman’s father."
The title “The Seven Silents” refers to the silence left in the wake of his father’s passing, a silence of mourning itself. The number “7” alludes to the seven days in which God created the world, resting on the seventh, with death figuratively representing ultimate rest after life’s arduous journey. As Josef Čapek once reflected in his diaries, “To be dead is sweet, because more than sleep itself it is peace, solace, an end to pain and hardships; but this ultimate sweetness, the most that can be granted to a human being, the dead do not experience, do not feel.”
"The title “The Seven Silents” refers to the silence left in the wake of his father’s passing, a silence of mourning itself."
These paintings possess a transcendent, spiritual quality, reflecting the artist’s deep intuition and lyrical melancholy, which doesn’t dissolve into despair but rather celebrates the eternity of art in opposition to human life’s inevitable finitude. The black-and-white ghostly figures intermingle with scenes reminiscent of faded archival films, forming a dynamic collage of intense emotions and intimate nostalgia.
This series, created in the intimacy of the artist’s home rather than his studio at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, marks a departure from Roman’s previous work, making it both rare and surprising. It employs a new technique involving scalpel carving, where this aggressive material destruction paradoxically results in a sensitive and cohesive artistic expression. Compared to his earlier works, these pieces carry a metaphysical quality, with the glued canvas presenting a significantly softer drawing surface despite its rougher edges.
"This series, created in the intimacy of the artist’s home rather than his studio, marks a departure from Roman’s previous work, making it both rare and surprising."
